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Reading Excuses / Re: Merry Freakin' Christmas
« on: December 25, 2010, 09:00:28 PM »
Merry Freakin' Christmas indeed! 
Hmm. I think seasons' greetings are better with epithets.
Hmm. I think seasons' greetings are better with epithets.
News:
A lot of people describe Scalzi’s Old Man's War novels as military science fiction, but I would classify its sequel Zoë’s Tale as a space opera. It’s a story about, well, Zoë, a teenage girl whose parents are invited to take leadership roles in building a colony on a new planet. Zoë is an enthusiastic member of the group sent to colonize Roanoke, despite the risks—and the risks are considerable even before the political machinations of greater powers boil to the surface. Continue reading Zoë’s Tale
Review by Silk
Discuss it in our forums.
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92
Reading Excuses / Happy Anniversary
« on: December 25, 2010, 09:36:28 AM »
'Cause I've just realized that Reading Excuses is now two years old.
93
Books / Re: What are you reading, part 3
« on: December 25, 2010, 08:10:02 AM »
Just finished Philip Pullman's The Subtle Knife, and I'm not particularly thrilled with how it ended. Obvious cliffhangers and climactic battles facilitated by character stupidity do not a happy reader make.
94
Writing Group / Re: Advice for writing action scenes?
« on: December 24, 2010, 08:35:56 PM »
Writing Excuses did a podcast on this a while back.
95
Writing Group / Re: Seeking a SciFi and Fantasy Writing Group with active members, firm deadlines
« on: December 19, 2010, 06:13:41 AM »
Wholesale plagiarism through a group like ours would, as Fireflyz points out, be pretty impractical. And generally speaking, it's not nearly the problem/threat/whatever that many people believe it to be.
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Reading Excuses / Re: Email List + Submission Dates
« on: December 19, 2010, 06:07:40 AM »
Got you both.
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Reading Excuses / Re: Email List + Submission Dates
« on: October 16, 2010, 08:56:36 PM »
You bet.
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Reading Excuses / Re: NaNoWriMo
« on: October 16, 2010, 08:55:00 PM »
Yes, technically it's against the rules. I've done it before, though--I think as long as you write 50,000 new words, they really don't care whether you work on something new or not. The "must work on something new" is mostly to benefit writers, I think; the basic logic behind the rule seems to be, "At 50k in a month you're going to write crap, probably lots of crap, and you'll have a much harder time writing crap if you think this book is your baby."
99
Reading Excuses / Re: Email List + Submission Dates
« on: October 09, 2010, 03:45:20 AM »
Check and check.
Don't you people ever stop? Monday's a holiday--
Oh wait. Right, Americans. Never mind.
Don't you people ever stop? Monday's a holiday--
Oh wait. Right, Americans. Never mind.
100
Writing Group / Re: Seeking a SciFi and Fantasy Writing Group with active members, firm deadlines
« on: October 09, 2010, 03:43:06 AM »
Reading Excuses has been going for nearly two years now, and I don't think it's going anywhere anytime soon. Like Fireflyz said, the number of critiques you'll get each week will probably be fairly small--2-5 is a pretty good ballpark--but it will be consistent. And yes, people here are very good about giving honest and thoughtful critiques.
The one area in which I'm not sure this group is for you is the "firm deadlines" bit. Submission dates are every Monday, which means that we do have deadlines of a sort, but you choose what weeks you want to submit and there's no minimum participation, so there aren't any consequences for not making a particular deadline (aside from the occasional person making fun of you if you didn't submit when you said you would. But nicely, of course).
Feel free to hop down to the Reading Excuses forum, though, if you want to see what we're all about.
The one area in which I'm not sure this group is for you is the "firm deadlines" bit. Submission dates are every Monday, which means that we do have deadlines of a sort, but you choose what weeks you want to submit and there's no minimum participation, so there aren't any consequences for not making a particular deadline (aside from the occasional person making fun of you if you didn't submit when you said you would. But nicely, of course).
Feel free to hop down to the Reading Excuses forum, though, if you want to see what we're all about.
101
Reading Excuses / Re: NaNoWriMo
« on: October 05, 2010, 06:20:20 PM »
I'll be participating in NaNoWriMo (username Raethe if anyone wants to look me up) but there's no way I can commit to critiquing extra work for November, sorry. I'll be somewhat surprised if I manage to "win" NaNoWriMo itself.
Good idea though.
Good idea though.
102
Books / Re: WWII Fantasy
« on: October 04, 2010, 12:41:35 AM »
I just finished reading Slaughter-House Five by Kurt Vonnegut. Science fiction, but set in World War II. I'm not sure it will have the detail you're looking for, but *shrug* it might, and it's short?
Honestly you might be better off trying to find some non-fiction books about the time period. I'm sure you can find stuff out there that does deal with the minutaie of day-to-day life, though I haven't the faintest clue where you'd start looking.
I mean, I always find it useful to see how the time period/whatever you're researching is reflected in writing, but I'm a bit leery about getting my facts from fiction. =)
Honestly you might be better off trying to find some non-fiction books about the time period. I'm sure you can find stuff out there that does deal with the minutaie of day-to-day life, though I haven't the faintest clue where you'd start looking.
I mean, I always find it useful to see how the time period/whatever you're researching is reflected in writing, but I'm a bit leery about getting my facts from fiction. =)
103
Reading Excuses / Re: Progress and Submission Reports
« on: October 03, 2010, 08:11:50 PM »
Congratulations!
Personally, I would lean more towards finishing another book first. (This is what I did after finishing the Ringing Horn. Of course, I haven't finished a second book yet...) You learn a whole lot from finishing that first book, and time away from a draft is definitely helpful.
Then again, if you already have some specific things in mind to change in Concord, time away might not be that essential now; you can always fix the things that you already know are wrong with it, then come back to it later and see if you can find other things wrong with it.
And of course, if you wake up one day with a deep-burning desire to work on one or the other, you should do that.
Personally, I would lean more towards finishing another book first. (This is what I did after finishing the Ringing Horn. Of course, I haven't finished a second book yet...) You learn a whole lot from finishing that first book, and time away from a draft is definitely helpful.
Then again, if you already have some specific things in mind to change in Concord, time away might not be that essential now; you can always fix the things that you already know are wrong with it, then come back to it later and see if you can find other things wrong with it.
And of course, if you wake up one day with a deep-burning desire to work on one or the other, you should do that.
104
Books / Re: Fantasy short stories
« on: October 02, 2010, 10:32:49 PM »
If you're interested in audio fiction, I've listened to all of the Podcastle short stories that Ryos recommended to me over here, and I'm happy to second his vote re: their excellence.
Flash Fiction Online publishes a mix of science fiction, fantasy, and mainstream (for lack of a better term) stuff. I always enjoy their issues, so if you're in the mood for something really short check them out.
There are quite a few well-known and well-regarded SFF magazines that publish online, but I'm going with the ones I've actually read material from.
Flash Fiction Online publishes a mix of science fiction, fantasy, and mainstream (for lack of a better term) stuff. I always enjoy their issues, so if you're in the mood for something really short check them out.
There are quite a few well-known and well-regarded SFF magazines that publish online, but I'm going with the ones I've actually read material from.
105
Reading Excuses / Re: Email List + Submission Dates
« on: October 02, 2010, 10:00:05 PM »
You betcha.
FYI, I'm going to spend the next couple weeks trying to catch up on/get ahead of my grad school work, in the hopes that I can actually start contributing again before December.
FYI, I'm going to spend the next couple weeks trying to catch up on/get ahead of my grad school work, in the hopes that I can actually start contributing again before December.